Dive into Reddit for performance! Reddit is long in the tooth when it comes to its existence as a social media platform. The company was founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman, Aaron Swartz, and Alexis Ohanian. Huffman remains the CEO till today, which is an impressive 16 years at the helm of a social news platform that in recent years has seen some incredibly impressive growth.
Table of Contents
Currently, Reddit is targeting a $15 billion valuation when it lists on the US stock exchange which is up from its $10 billion valuation assessment during a private investment round involving Facility investments in August 2021.
Reddit is going to grow!
So why should advertisers be looking more seriously into Reddit? Well, if the platform is going to experience a huge cash injection, then they will need to justify that cash with the growth and more opportunities for advertisers. Reddit has already started spending the money with a high-profile campaign in the UK to attract new users, and they also recently hired the hugely successful ex-tinder marketing director Laurelle Potter. You can expect that Reddit will go on an extensive hiring drive in the UK And Europe as they try to broaden their user base away from the US.
Not many people realize, but Reddit is actually a pretty massive platform, quietly growing away in the background while other social platforms like Instagram and TikTok have stolen the limelight over the past 2 years or so. To date, Reddit has 430 Million active monthly users with 221 million of these situated in the United States. Reddit’s audience tends to be younger with 18 to 29-year-olds at 22% and 30 to 29-year-olds at 14%. Reddit also skews more towards male users with some reporting that 67% of the user base is male, that however varies from market to market.
Reddit is going to grow fast!
Since app install ads have proven themselves to be a lucrative business for publishers (mobile ad spend is expected to reach almost 120bn in 2022), Reddit has been offering integrations with mobile MMPs for a while now and also has solutions for Apples’ ATT framework.
Reddit is classed as a social news platform, and many of its users feel that it is more a community than a social network. Profiles are effectively very private, with random handle names assigned to users when they join the platform and avatars that can be selected based on the activity of a user. No profile pictures are displayed and if someone wants to connect with another user, the receiving user has full control over accepting or rejecting a request. Historically Reddit users have been seen as fairly ‘low value’ compared to other platforms, but that’s really likely to change with the growth plans that Reddit has and the possibility of more native ad placements that Reddit will find more appealing.
Advertising
Reddit does offer a pretty standard range of advertising options including in-feed posts and videos and more high-profile takeover ad units. Targeting is also good with more options to stay relevant and post on certain channels, or sub-Reddit’s, as they are known. It’s important for advertisers to be aware that Reddit users do not really appreciate irrelevant or annoying shouty ads (er…duh), so it pays to do your research and post ‘Reddit-worthy’ ads with the right kind of content and copy to go with it.
Speak da lingo
Reddit is essentially a community, it’s a self-regulating organism where being authentic is extremely important. Many of the channels are closely regulated. For example, I posted a piece on lab-grown meat in the science channel, however, it was quickly removed because it did not link to a peer review paper. I also lost ‘karma’ points on my profile, which was just a bit of a punch in the gut. I did eventually find the right Subreddit to post in r/labgrownmeat and received around 52 upvotes which gave me a warm fuzzy feeling.
So it’s important to be genuine and play by the rules. If you are promoting a game, keep it relevant to the game subreddit. And research the terminology you need to use in your copy and also the creative tactic you are going to use.
Picking your subreddit is important. You’ll benefit by being more focused here than running a generic campaign. Some notable subreddits from the top fifty subreddits include:
r/gaming
r/movies
r/music
r/news
r/books
r/television
r/space
r/DIY
r/food
r/history
Make sure you do your research on where to place your message. You can read more about reverse engineering your Reddit ads.
Dive into Reddit for performance
It’s time for advertisers to take a look beyond social platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Especially if they want to target male users, at a relatively low price point. If you do take the jump consider these points:
- Research which Subreddits you want to be part of
- Make your ad look and feel as native as possible
- Always test out a range of creative
- Make your copy Reddit worthy and use the right lingo so that users will engage
Want to learn more?! Reach out to Admiral Media for more information on how to set up effective campaigns on Reddit. Want to read more? Check out the Admiral blog here.
